Amy, darling, we don't usually record THAT
by Be3
Summary: It is difficult to chronicle the adventures of a seasoned Immortal if you are new in the field AND he knows you personally... Drabbles. Methos interacts with...
1. Duncan MacLeod

A/N: pure silliness. Since most of the time, Watchers can't observe Immortals directly, they must rely upon circumstantial evidence… whatever it is.

Disclaimer: neither Methos, nor MacLeod, nor the typical plotline of MacLeod's love affairs belong to me.

Tape recording.

**RUSTLE.**

Clearly: 'One, two. One, two, three, four... Ok, I think it works.'

Mildly irritated: 'Do we _have_ to?'

Matter-of-factly: 'I promised her I'll be good for a week. That means my private life isn't private anymore, and by extension, yours.'

Disbelievingly: 'Just how did she get you to do it?'

Sagely: 'Poker.'

**PAUSE.**

Concernedly: 'It looks ancient. Do we hold it, or something?'

'Naw, lay it here. Now spit, I don't have all day.'

**PAUSE.**

'C'mon, Mac, spill! Use a code, if you must.'

**PAUSE.**

Hesitantly: 'Lying on my back, I am, a hand behind my head. Searching another is behind my collar for an agile insect. An ant, it must be. Of the not-quite-black, hiding-in-plain-sight variety.'

'_Way_ behind you collar. Bite, ant, bite!'

**SNICKER.**

[CENSORED:

'I don't really have to confess in you.'

'Great!'

'I just... need an advice.'

'Then speak so that I can understand.'

'Well... you see, 'I' is me, and the ant is you.'

'Sweet.'

'Don't go there.'

'I never!']

'For today it is where I find myself, on the cusp of another fall. Several wild pear-trees there are, branches thick against the sky; warm are the tart fruits in the postmeridian sun...'

[CENSORED:

'I assume you're talking about the Quickenings.'

'Actually, about the challenges, but that's a point-of-view question.'

'You are one conceited bastard.'

'Takes one to know one.']

**CRUNCH. SIGH.**

Mutedly: 'Yummy fruits. Wanna some?'

Distractedly: 'No, thanks.' Tediously: 'Still, of this place grasses are the be-all and end-all, and now ceases the wind, as all commas should, but lo! Up it is again...'

[CENSORED:

'Grasses?'

'Mortals.'

'As in, 'lower beings'?'

'As in, there's a bunch of them, and only a handful of us.']

Regretfully: 'Grammar, for centuries have I fought; revived it, each time. In the end, there can be only One.'

Resignedly: 'Down fall the pears with muffled thuds. Move now, I should. Out of the way. Resonate, they do, when on a skull they drop, the projectiles.'

**THUD.**

'Cool!'

**THUD-THUD-THUD.**

'Not fa-'

**A FAINT 'CLICK', LIKE A MOUTH SUDDENLY SHUT. A GUTTURAL SOUND OF PROTEST.**

'You were saying? Soar, the panicles - are they striking, high, first-to-remember, and sorrowless as angels, or simply to be expected in arid conditions?'

**SPITTING.**

'To blazes with botany! No - don't - _don't_ - '

**INDECIPHERABLE NOISE. MOANING.**

Triumphantly: 'Ticklish, are ye?'

Pleading: 'I surrender!'

Peacefully: 'Swallowwort is abundant, too. Accumbent are its leaves, fixed in pairs, and drooping like sealed scrolls, though not yet withered. Seeds a-flying -'

To the side: 'Talk about double entendre.'

**SIGH.**

[CENSORED:

'That was no double entendre, you daft old man. I meant the Watchers.'

'Oh. And the panicles are?'

'_Think_, Adam. They make you laugh -'

'Under protest.'

'They are gentle, they bear flowers...'

'Got it. Who is she?'

'You don't know her.'

'I will, MacLeod. I will.']

'So, the swallowwort. Open, the pods did, but cling to them, offspring does. Rainbows, I see, when through their hairs at the sun I look. Even when in shadow they are, glows the base of the tuft.'

**MUFFLED CHORTLING.**

'Sorry. Couldn't help it. Ver-ry poetic.'

**THUMP.**

Indignantly: 'I said I'm sorry!'

'Sure. Now, asparagus. Adds to the green, it does, though not immediately notice it one might. Summer, it still lives in.'

To the side: 'Stupid vegetable.'

[CENSORED:

_'She's not.'_

'I bet they have a lot in common... And you're a pervert.'

'That's not the problem right now. _Asparagus_ is Immortal.'

'You are one lucky man.']

Tensely: 'Long legs, red eyes - a spider passes by.'

To the side: 'You and your imagination.'

[CENSORED:

'I wish.'

'A vampire?'

'You vampire. He's Asparagus's old friend.'

'The usual, then.']

Graciously: 'He's beautiful.'

Evenly: 'Yeah. Edible.'

Horrified: 'M- _Adam_!'

Patiently: 'Next time you want my opinion on how to live your life, MacLeod, just ask. I promise I won't bite. Pierson out.'

**END OF RECORD.**


	2. Joe Dawson

A/N: so, how did Joe Dawson meet Adam Pierson? Why doesn't he object to Adam drinking beer for free? Why did Adam Pierson, "eternal graduate student", decide to buy a car? Maybe there was some story behind it all…

Sorry for the _Matrix_ reference. Couldn't help.

The glare of Joe's flashlight was slowly and steadily weakening. The mud, caked on the boot of the car, scraped his hands when he leaned onto it. His scarf rolled around the body's neck to absorb at least part of the gore and buried alongside it, since it was beyond redemption, the drizzle and the wind chilled his nape at an angle he found particularly nasty. And his assigned "muscle", a young researcher Adam Pierson, was whining like a circular saw in the hands of some inventive Elvis-loving sociopath who thought guitars were overrated, really. A circular saw with a British accent and a slight head cold.

Said Adam Pierson finished inspecting the damage to his vehicle and returned their only source of light to its rightful owner. His eyes half-closed in defeat, he straightened, slammed the bonnet shut, and mumbled mournfully: 'I _rented_ it.'

'Tasteful,' Joe sniped, still wheezing from their hasty retreat from the riverbank. Right now he hated the car, the river, the man they had had no means to legally bury… come to think of it, did they have to wait for _hours_ for the confirmation that there weren't any possible heirs and/or avengers to take care of the gruesome task? They were lucky they hadn't been detained for loitering (and explaining a decapitated body would have just topped Joe's day; Watchers tried to keep a low profile with police, and such blatant dilettantism on the part of their duty operator was unacceptable).

The boy's breath hitched (Joe couldn't tell if he were amused or, finally, enraged); spitting into the snow, he sullenly continued: 'The blood has already seeped in. It's ruined. _I_'m ruined. And frozen. And hungry -'

That was the problem with researchers. They were always ruined, frozen, hungry, and never too shy to updatethe universe on their inconveniences. Joe sat down on the filthy bonnet, cane slipping out of reach.

'Let the HQ pay up. Like, the insurance,' he suggested, heaving a sigh.

'Insurance? I've not a scratch on me!' Pierson waved his hands to emphasize his vexation with his continued good health.

'We can always arrange something,' Joe ventured uncertainly, and with only the faintest tinge of wistfulness.

The younger one bent down to retrieve the cane, sticking it up before emerging himself. His voice came up light; he must have been mollified to find a fellow sufferer.

'Just what do you have in mind, Joe? Salzers invited me to dinner today. I wouldn't want to miss it. And I'm still due a report on sewer-dwellers during the Terror.'

Ah yes, the twenty-odd Immortals who went underground to not be guillotined. A bizarre occurrence in the history of French Immortal population, and understandably ill-documented.

_I'd be just fine with 'Mr. Dawson'_. Joe reverted to office-speak, since his comfort-loving charge was clearly as inefficient in the field as an accountant in executing a bank robbery: 'Mr. Pierson, you are as much a part of the organization -'

'I'm in _Research_. I don't go _digging_ at _two_ bleeding o'clock _in the morning_.'

Joe chanted _Elvis lives_ under his breath. It helped. Barely.

'I can't dig.'

Adam ranted on. He probably hadn't seen anything like _that_ before; Joe reminded himself that people react to stress differently, and didn't ask him to shut the hell up. Better to get it out of the system.

'And what if that - guy decided he'd better dispose of the body before the police found it, and came back? What would we do?"

_Ah, logic at last_. Joe dismissed the argument as any seasoned vet would, though he knew there had been undesirable bouts of Immortal diligence in the past. He felt justified; Pierson's paranoia would drive _him_ up the wall if Pierson suspected his misgivings were, in fact, sound.

'Not this one. Pure cerebellum, no planning. Vengeful, too.'

The researcher gulped audibly.

'That bad?'

Well, Joe was only too glad to discourage the snot nose. It might yet save his life someday.

'That worse.'

Adam slumped beside him morosely.

'So we're what, accessories to murder now?'

'Been for centuries.' Joe wiggled his eyebrows and intoned creepily: 'Welcome into the real world, son.'

But the "son" was still staring morbidly at something he might not have wanted to see if he could.

'So much blood. I hoped -'

But he didn't say what he hoped. After a while, Joe glanced mate-wards.

'Come. I have a cleanser; it might work.'

Adam obeyed, musing aloud while slipping into the driver's seat: 'But where's the real clean-up crew? Why send us - are we on rotation?'

Joe frowned darkly, throwing the shovel on the back seat.

'Busy. There've been two more Challenges tonight.'

He would have been surprised to discover that his companion had had the same thought: the Gathering is a bitch.

'So, yours hasn't taken one?' Adam offered in a way of small talk. Occupational hazard, talking about beheadings when not having anything else in common.

'Hasn't for years.'

Joe was proud for Duncan MacLeod. Other Watchers might brag on about how their assignments would one day win the Prize, but MacLeod's name spoke for itself.

Meanwhile, Adam stopped fiddling with ignition, and banged his fist on the wheel, frustrated.

'I _knew_ it looked shifty. We're stuck!'

Oh, for the love of…

'Lemme. Kids today! Now get us out of here.'

He thought he caught a murmured 'Story of my life', but he wasn't sure.

They were already crawling up the highway, the weather slowing down anybody desperate enough to drive in these conditions (though there were several insane enough to speed by), when he sniffed something besides wet wool and dried blood.

'That's -'

Adam groaned, but not diverted his eyes from the road.

'The bottle I bought for the evening. Smashed. You've just washed the shovel in the finest red wine I could afford.'

Joe chuckled unrepentantly, then yawned abruptly.

'Sorry. Buy another one. You still have the time.'

That brought a reluctant, but apparently genuine, smile out of the perpetually whiny brat.

'You scintillate today, Mr. Dawson.'

'Someone has to,' he nodded sleepily.

Adam Pierson smirked then, but without malice.

'And you owe me one, Joe.'


	3. Piersonally speaking I

A/N: what if Methos tried his hand as the editor of _Watchers Weekly_, a gazette for Watchers worldwide?

Piersonally speaking I.

Ladies and Gentlemen, and everybody who doesn't fit into either category!

We proudly present you a new periodical specifically designed to enhance the coordination between our comrades, to help you get your bearings in the widening-tightening circle of Immortal-related infrastructure, to hear and be heard, to soothe your jarred nerves, and of course, to give you a good reason to laugh in our Challenging times.

Behold _Watchers Weekly_! In this issue:

TIPS FROM VETS: The many jobs I had to quit, by P. Leery (W. of Jeremy "Gutsy" Salesbury; the guy knows his business!)

_Feedback to be sent to the editorial board._

FACTS&FAKES: Methos: The oldest prank in the World?, by A. Pierson (Res., Methos Project) _Feedback to be sent to J. Dawson, W. of Duncan MacLeod otCoML._

O&R: A case study of a Challenge witnessed by 10 independent recorders, by A. May (Head of Dept. of Logistics in the NW Europe)

_Feedback to be sent to Geneva Education Group._

SCIENCE MISAPPLIED: Not a pest in your pantry, by J. Dawson (W. of Duncan MacLeod otCoML; an insightful and passionate criticism of the Horton's Proposal)

_Feedback to be sent to J. Dawson, W. of Duncan MacLeod otCoML_

SECOND NATURE: Fencing styles and how to use them to ID Immortals II: When you're in the dark, listen, by B. Stanley, Res. Dept. of the Unknown Challengers, NW USA

_Feedback to be sent to H. Deerhunter, same Dept._

RESOURCES: The five least capable graduates of the year, by D. Broadbent, Deputy Head of the Academy of Geneva _(please don't send feedback)_

EDITORIAL:

CALL FOR PAPERS: Take part in the Third Conference on Research Ethics in January!

DO NOT CONTACT: list of field agents who is currently working under so heavy a cover they aren't to be contacted by anyone save their respective Dept. heads

CULTURE EXCHANGE: What we learn from those we Watch: excerpts from the Journal of an unknown Watcher kindly granted by the Lyons Museum...

The man at the desk played with a pencil, a satisfied smile on his face. He loved innovations, even if they required an inordinate amount of work to implement. He stared at the pages, allowing himself another moment of reflection, and tried to imagine the people behind the articles. Being the editor was so much fun, especially if your alias was unbreakable, and you didn't have to struggle with the spelling yourself...

1.

Paul Leery perched upon an overturned log in a clearing, smoking his chipped pipe and occasionally scratching in a disturbingly simian manner.

After thirty years of tracking his assignment over the vast planes of eastern Europe, he decided that the old ways of observing, recording and not having a life were not to his liking, and began taking his responsibilities with a grain of salt. "Gutsy" James was as average Immortal as they go: about thirty years, grey eyes, not an athlete neither a punch bag. James has evolved past his headhunting years about twenty years ago (something Paul was exceedingly grateful for); on the other hand, his _joi-de-vivre_ was unquenchable.

Paul rotated his shoulders. In his heart of hearts, he knew he had been a fool to ever regret those crazy old days...

...Having been spared by an Old One, Mr. Salesbury had done some serious thinking about his chances in the Game, and arrived at a disconsolatory though inevitable conclusion that he was little more than cannon-fodder; and so...

Mr. Leery found himself flying down steep alpine slopes following his skis; hiding from mad soccer fans behind fallen stalls and being accused of breaching public order when they passed and he stayed; repeatedly braving the hammering waves of Atlantic Ocean; shaking like jelly when something furry and warm sniffed at his neck under a prickly African bush; but the worst part was the irregular financing.

How he hated that aspect of his job. Every month he had to explain to his Cerberus of accountant that in truth, he didn't enjoy any of those idiotic activities only an Immortal could hope to survive unscathed. "Gutsy" blossomed: his muscles hardened, his eyes shone with the wild joy of trying and achieving, his women refused to stay in a civilised queue. He read Hemingway and dreamed of becoming a writer himself.

Paul nursed bruises, sweated during visa interviews, and sent postcards to his fortunate colleagues who dreamed to move to warmer climes.

Ironically, around the same time they both realised they needed more money.

For James Salesbury, Irish by birth and peddler by nature, "need more money" meant "choose from forty different ways to earn them, then act"; for Paul Leery, a slug plucked off his beloved leaf since trying to help a victim of a spectacular electrocution (they said he almost did himself in then, going near someone so Old he wasn't even registered in the database), "need more money" meant "failed as a janitor; as a waiter; as a postman; as a taxi-driver; better start saving up for a burial".

...Paul sighed. There it had been, that Eureka moment he'd craved for so long; that pinnacle of improvisation that brought him stability in life, respect of his relatives, and lastly, his downfall into mediocrity.

He opened an undertaker's office.

It would be nice to trail "Gutsy" one more time; the guy was personable and honourable. But lately "Gutsy" has taken to water sports, sailing in particular; and Watching aboard a small vessel was an art Paul didn't think he'd learn to appreciate.

He was old.

Leery yanked his pipe out, heedless of scratching the enamel on his teeth, sneered and stretched. He'd have to make sure none of those young ones repeated his mistakes.

He'll write a paper.


End file.
